the happy ever after
by edeabeth
Summary: It's Beauty and the Beast, with each thinking they are the beast.


the happy ever after

.

Hello all! I will be shortly working on a new Crash Course story, this one centric to Captain America: Winter Solider. So S.H.I.E.L.D is going down, Steve and Natasha might actually be together, and who knows. Maybe Ivan might make an appearance. Or not.

Anyways, I am pumped to see Age of Ultron, and this is my little one shot for the new pairing that sprung out of nowhere.

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It's Beauty and the Beast, with each thinking they are the beast.

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It's a little after the near destruction on New York, and really the entire world, when he finds it.

It's an apartment that sits above a massive second hand bookstore that looks like it specializes in first edition books. He catches a glimpse of her red hair as he walks down the street still riddled with damage. She's sitting perched on a window ledge with her leg swinging slightly in the hot summer air. Natasha has a book in front of her but she's watching him from above. Very slowly she raises a hand in greeting and jerks her head up. Bruce feels compelled to wander up the rickety stairs and open the unlocked door to enter her apartment.

Her apartment looks like an untouched haven compared to the rest of the devastation. Art hangs on the wall while they entire space is filled with books. Natasha sits like a cat in the sunlight with a small little table next to her. On the table sits a small black tea set, two cups of tea poured. "Were you expecting me?" Bruce asked her because really, this was Natasha. She could have known days ago that he would eventually stumble upon her little nest.

"I always serve two cups," she shrugged, shutting the book. To Kill A Mockingbird was scrawled upon the cover in red swirling letters and he smiled slightly at the sight of the well-loved spine cracked and worn. "Help yourself, Doctor."

He hesitantly pulls a chair closer to the table. "How long have you lived here?" He asked as he picked up the tea cup, inhaling the sweet aroma of melons and citrus.

"I've had several safe houses arranged, but this is the only one that S.H.I.E.L.D has no clue of." Natasha told him with a slight smile. "I own the entire building, minus the bookstore."

"You don't trust S.H.I.E.L.D do you?"

She shrugged. "I don't trust many people. Trusting usually leads to terrible deaths in my line of work."

"I hurt you," Bruce noted. Her pale face was darkened by bruises and the bright white bandages stood out against her skin. Her wrist looked swollen and slightly awkward in her lap. "I'm sorry, I hadn't meant to."

Natasha's eyes went hard as she leaned closer. "Many people have hurt me with the intention to do so. I've been through unspeakable cruelties. You changing wasn't something you could control. The Hulk is something that understands brutality and that's comforting."

"Why's that?"

"Equal footing." She grinned hard at him. "Anyways, I don't want your apologies. Apologies are pointless."

They drank tea in silence together.

.

Natasha enjoys reading, he discovers. She also enjoys collection journals written in by strangers and has a strange fascination for crossword puzzles, something he cannot understand. He drops by the apartment frequently, each time bringing either takeout or flowers.

The flowers make her blink and falter because she unsure. Bruce finds that he likes surprising her in all sorts of manners. After a day spent clearing the wreckage she finds him waiting outside her apartment next to a stack of books. Another time she greets him as he sets out a bowl of cat food for all the strays that flock her building for whatever reason. "Careful," she warns him, "they might never go away again."

"Would that be terrible? He asked her in return as he watched her face soften at the sight of a black kitten rub up against her ankle.

"Perhaps not," she said very quietly.

Eventually a couple cats make their home in her apartment and Bruce forces her to go shopping for proper cat accessories like a scratching post and food that isn't meant for human consumption. ("they eat it!" she had protested despite his claims that it wasn't good for them.).

A month after the city had been fully repaired from the damage she hands him a key silently. "Stop knocking." She demanded shortly as she passed by to pick up their Thai food.

.

"So, what are you and Red, anyways?" Tony asked bluntly as he leaned over a tool box to get the wrench he needed. "You two are always cozy with each other."

Bruce sighed. "Does it matter?"

"Does she matter?"

"Yes, of course she does." He said with confusion.

He rolled his eyes. "Then of course it matters," Tony stated blandly. "I'm curious. Fill me in on this."

"I'm her slave."

"I can't actually tell if you're being serious or not."

.

Bruce dreams sometimes of destroying everything. In his dreams it's his hand, not a green fist, that chokes innocent strangers. Buildings collapse under his control and suddenly he can't breathe because the dust is too thick-

Natasha leans over him in the darkness of their bedroom, speaking in Russian in a tone that he supposes is meant to be comforting. The sheets are soft against his skin and the air is perfectly cool, the sound of New York at night a low rumble. "You are alright, Bruce." She told him softly.

"I'll kill everyone," he whispered. "I won't be able to stop."

She shrugged as she slid out of bed and onto a chair next to him while pulling out a gun. Two cats leaped up onto the side of the bed that she had just abandoned. "I'll protect you." She said. "Just go back to sleep and trust me."

Her words sound fragile, as if the idea of trust is a flimsy concept. He nods though as he stretches out for her hand. "I trust you," he whispered before shutting his eyes.

His dreams are filled with old journals and cats.

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She believes she's a monster.

She believes so intently that she's a terrible person that she cloaks herself within the identity of one. Her hands are drenches in crimson blood in her eyes, and her entire life exists for one single purpose. She has a terrible past that is coated in sacrifice and abuse. Natasha never had a chance, he realized, to ever have become a normal woman making a life. She'd been ripped away from her family at a young age by a man named Ivan, forced into a government project that destroyed little girls. She told him about the mass graves filled with bodies of children, failures of the Red Room. She'd been raised in little tiny cells and lab tables.

Eventually she'd been released from the Red Room to take on missions for the sake of her country. She became a victim in each persona, raped and abused by the men who would eventually be taken down. Natasha whispered how he raped her against a wall and laughed as she cried. She'd been maybe sixteen then, she estimated. She shot him dead while he smoked a cigarette. She still had the scar on her shoulder from the cigarette, his grip forcing her to tolerate the burning of her flesh.

Natasha doesn't truly believe she's a good person, but he knows better. She slips money in the hats of the homeless; she spent months helping clear the body from the wreckage of the alien invasion. He'd seen her choke back tears at the sight of a school bus filled with the dead bodies of children.

"I'm a beast," she informs him sharply some nights when he leans a bit to close. He never listens, because in his mind, she'll always be the beauty.

.

"Do I matter to you at all?" He asked her very quietly one night. They fought rarely. Sometimes she was irritable and other times he was aggravated. When they did fight, however, it was quietly. Never with raised voices or fists, because they were both a little to broken to withstand such dangerous intent. "Or am I just a game for you to play with?"

She gazed darkly at him, eyes like diamonds as she stood rigid with hands that trembled. "I think you should know the answer to that, Banner."

"You think I'm going to hurt you."

"I think everyone is capable of hurting people." She replied hotly, edging away from him slowly. He took two steps closer for every step she took and eventually she was pressed against the wall with him in front of her. "You're no exception."

He waited exactly ten seconds because he was going to give her a single chance to push away. To escape and drive her walls up once again. She didn't though, almost trembling before him. It took him a moment to understand why she wasn't fleeing before he understood-she was opening herself for him. "I'm falling in love for you," he said gently. Her dark eyes looked into his.

Natasha's shoulders twitched. "That is a very dangerous thing to do."

"I suppose it is."

"What's more dangerous, however, is that I'm falling for you."

.

Nothing really changes.

Neither of them tell anyone about the change in their relationship, because neither of them see any point in doing so. Tony catches on immediately, however, because Natasha smiles at Bruce frequently, something he had said was impossible and the world must be ending. She tugged at the key that hung from a chain around her neck and frowned at the billionaire.

Steve didn't catch on until he found a small picture of Natasha in his locker with a Russian phrase written on the back in green ink. (she had a fondness for unusual pen colours, apparently.). "I thought she and Barton were together," Steve has said to him as he held the image carefully.

"I think they'd take down the entire world if they ever tried to go out," he said fondly. The idea of the two in a relationship amused him. It was a common sight to see the two attacking each other gleefully to see who could pin each other down first. It was an event that had originally given the rest of the team heart attacks, walking in with Barton twisting her arm behind her back or Natasha choking him until he spat out 'uncle!'.

Thor understood at some point and accepted it without any mention, because he saw no point in it. It was nearly a year until Clint caught on and the entire tower was filled with his shouting at being out of the loop.

Nothing really ever changed after that moment in her apartment, Natasha pressed against a wall and he ripping out his heart to hand to her. She still waited for him on the window ledge and he was still picking cat hair of his pants in fond exasperation. Natasha kept a collection of journals filled with harmless lives and he had a key that opened to a home always in his pocket.

.

"Welcome home," she greeted him as he swung the door open.

Two cups of tea sat next to her and he accepted one.

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End file.
